**Announcing TRUTH In Teaching**

I am so pleased to announce that I am undertaking a huge venture and yet another leave-of-absence leap of faith: TRUTH In Teaching, my new website and blog, created especially for teachers. When I wrote “An Open Letter to Campbell Brown from a Teacher on Leave” a few days ago, I never imagined the outpouring of support I would receive. The letter has gone viral, I have received hundreds of emails, and teachers continue to comment and speak out on the original blog post. In all of the correspondence, one thing has become abundantly clear: teachers need a voice but are afraid to speak up because of backlash from the public and their administrators. So, I am thrilled to announce TRUTH In Teaching.

My TRUTH partner and I share a passion for helping teachers in every way that we can to combat education reform, high-stakes testing, and the war on teachers. We know this will not be an easy journey, and we don’t expect to influence policymakers and big businesses who are trying to take over public education… at least, not right away. But, we do hope to keep the discussion that started with the letter going. And, we hope that teachers feel more confident in joining the discussion to get out the TRUTH about what it’s like to teach in today’s public education system, so that parents and policymakers alike can start shifting the conversation back to education and learning and away from the numbers.

So, for those of you who started following this site because of my letter to Campbell Brown, please check out TRUTH In Teaching and follow us there, too. We’d love it if you’d share the link on Facebook to help get out the word to everyone who read the letter, too! In the next few days, we will be adding more content to TRUTH In Teaching including blog posts with tips for starting back to school, lesson plan and icebreaker ideas for the first couple of weeks, and more so that teachers can start this school year on the right foot. We will be devoting as much time as possible to TRUTH very soon.

TRUTH exists solely for the teachers. We hope the resources on the site will be invaluable tools for you in the upcoming school year and that you visit the site often for information, graphic organizers, lesson plan ideas, or maybe just a laugh at a blog post. Ultimately, we hope to create a culture of education that focuses more on helping students and teachers thrive than it does on a standardized test score or teacher or school grade. Teach on!

PS – Those of you who joined the “What the Hell” journey here on Life Under the Ponytail for my take on life and parenting will be happy to know that this new venture will separate my two “lives.” I will be writing the teaching content on TRUTH In Teaching and the life and parenting content on Life Under the Ponytail, which was the original plan for this blog. And, if you’re looking for even more to read, check out my other latest project, The Brewery Blog. Thanks for sticking with me on this unbelievable ride!

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3 thoughts on “**Announcing TRUTH In Teaching**”

Yay, you! Please fix the Links for Truth in Teaching because I’m really excited to check it out! There are many teachers who have retired, are pursuing new avenues (though teaching will forever be in their hearts), & many former classroom teachers who left to homeschool their own children. We need all of the teacher voices we can. I’m so excited to add you and your ideas to our cause!

Hey Mrs Shawley! This is probably the wrong place to say this, but its the place I could find to contact you anonymously through a quick google search.
I’d just like to thank you for your classes- I had you for two years! Your class was hard word, especially for me who was going through a rough time (not your fault), but it has really helped me this year in English. I’m getting beautiful grades on all of my writings, while my tablemates look at my papers in utter confusion on how I can get such good grades and understand things quickly when it comes to writing essays. A kid next to me sighed today, saying that getting the “easier” teachers really came around this year to bite him in the ass and that he wished he had you.
But yeah! I’d just like to write this to say thank you, and to apologize for days I was more difficult (sleeping was my worst problem.) If it makes you feel any better, sleeping is still a problem and it wasn’t your class. It was just my god awful sleeping schedule. I hope you can come back to our not-so-wonderful school with hopefully better students and a better school year.
-Anonymous student you can probably guess anyway